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January 2024

You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2024.

Getting started

January 26, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Start by <a href="http://www.nyphotographic.com/">Nick Youngson</a> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> <a href="http://pix4free.org/">Pix4free</a>If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.

Drew Houston

In these recent posts – ‘Adjusting the Sails‘, ‘One and One and One is Three‘ and ‘The World of Work‘ – I sought to bring the gentle reader gently up to date with how things had come to rest for The Girl and I at the culmination of a particularly – er – ‘eventful’ year (though aren’t they all nowadays!). What I have not yet done is to peep out from underneath the metaphorical duvet – to see if I can detect good news anywhere betwixt where we are now and the distant horizon of 2025.

So – this is what we know currently about what 2024 has in store for us…

In terms of travel 2023 was – for us – a complete shocker. Without incessantly ploughing the same furrow it is worth reminding ourselves that there was a point last year when we seriously thought that our travelling days were over. Not so – you will be happy to hear. We are already well advanced with the planning for another expedition for April/May this year.

“Which exotic part of the globe will you be visiting?” – I hear you cry. Well – I’m sure we all have our own definitions of ‘exotic’. This is one of ours.

The Girl and I have for a considerable while now felt drawn to visit the mystical realm of Scotland. Even casual viewers of these witterings will be aware of my love for – and great pride in – the home of my ancestors (the which I inherited from my father). My family travelled many times to the highlands for holidays just as soon as we were old enough. My father was a great hill walker and he and I (and sometimes my younger brother) climbed many a peak in different parts of the land. I have regularly over the years visited both Edinburgh and Glasgow for work and – with my theatrical hat on – ventured to the Edinburgh Fringe on more occasions than I can now enumerate.

The Girl has toured parts of Scotland just once before – with a good guide and great friend – but she and I have not been there together and we feel a very strong urge so to do.

Anyway – more on that trip as it unfolds…

In ‘The World of Work‘ I wrote:

“During the autumn just past The Girl reached the conclusion that her eight years at the volunteer service was enough. As it happens the service was undergoing some restructuring and she was able to do a deal whereby she would hand over the reigns to a full-time replacement, with a negotiated package that would enable her to take some time to figure out what – if anything – she wanted to do next. She is thus once again retired (for now!)“.

Following what might just be the shortest retirement ever… The Girl has just this week started an exiting new venture, about which I can currently reveal nothing at all, but concerning which I suspect a great deal will be said in the months to come. Watch – as they say – this space!

I have already dropped huge hints about creative developments in the musical department. We are firmly expecting a new album to put in an appearance at some point this year – and if we could play live somewhere to welcome it, then that would be splendid.

As ever at this time of the year there are many other exciting prospects bubbling under and – though there are also many very good reasons to feel nervous about 2024 – I like to approach the year under an umbrella of optimism. (Google assures me that – somewhat to my surprise – I am not the first to coin that particular euphemism. Oh well!).

Very best wishes to you all for 2024.

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Snow angels

January 19, 2024 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“When it snows, you have two choices—shovel or make snow angels”

Unknown

Following a number of false alarms Vancouver Island finally succumbed to one of the snow storms that have already been prevalent in other parts of the country. In the usual manner – and for the familiar reasons – the BC capital failed to deal particularly well with what was in fact not really a huge amount of snow.

Those further east – where the winter weather is considerably more serious (snows that fall in November or December may still be lying in February or March) – are won’t to sneer at us coastal British Columbians for our general feeb-like response to this natural phenomenon. We simply smile at them and point out that the six inches of snow that fell here on Thursday will be gone by the weekend – and in four week’s time the city’s streets will be emblazoned with spring blossoms.

Yah boo sucks!

Of course, that means I have to whip my camera out sharpish and dash off a few snaps. I really like the way the snow makes these images look like monochrome ones – with just the odd Spielbergian splash of colour giving the game away.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidI loved the juxtaposition of the bright saturated colours of these flowers in our dining room against the black and white of the snow outside the window.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Measured by years

January 8, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy”.

Dorothy Thompson

On January 7th 2014 I wrote this post whilst sitting in the departure hall at Vancouver International airport, waiting for a flight back to the UK. The Girl and I had been visiting British Columbia for Christmas and the New Year – as well as for a trip up island to Tofino… more specifically to the Wickaninnish Inn. The chief purpose for our trip there was to celebrate my sixtieth birthday – that somewhat scary turning of a decade which is a precursor to impending old age.

Now – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that – if I turned sixty in 2014 – I must now have finally reached the ripe old age of seventy…

…which is indeed the case.

Our 2014 trip to Tofino was all the more epic because we were still living in the UK at the time. This time round we were not only resident in the country in which we celebrated, but also just down the road from our chosen destination – that favourite of ours, the Brentwood Lodge Spa. Because The Girl was in charge of the details the event turned out to be a slick piece of organisation – and a lot of fun and relaxation to boot.

We trundled over to the spa on Friday for sumptuous ninety minute massages (hmmm! dreamy!) – but came home thereafter to sleep in our own bed. We re-traced our footsteps on the Saturday and checked in for the night to one of what really are very gorgeous West Coast rooms – overlooking Brentwood Bay and the Mill Bay ferry dock.

There was time for lounging in the pool (outdoors, but startlingly warm) and the hot tub before we dolled ourselves up for dinner. We hugely enjoyed a splendid coastal repast with Tuna Tataki, Scallops and mushroom risotto to the fore – supported ably by a delicious bottle of BC Fool’s Mate Chardonnay from Checkmate Artisinal Winery.

Yum!

As for the birthday – job done!

Here are some piccies…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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The world of work

January 3, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Work life balance by <a href="http://www.nyphotographic.com/">Nick Youngson</a> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> <a href="http://pix4free.org/">Pix4free</a>In my post of December 15th – last year (how time doth fly!) – entitled ‘A metaphor for endings‘ – I promised updates on a number of the strands of our lives. There is one such left outstanding – the which I feel I must needs address forthwith…

…the world of work!

When The Girl and I ‘retired’ to Vancouver Island back in the summer of 2015 it had been our intention to be just that… retired! So – how did that work out?

Well – The Girl lasted all of six months before she started looking for some form of employment. The tale of her finding a job with a volunteer service in Saanich during April 2016 may be found here:

I held out rather longer – not re-joining the workforce until January 2018 – but since then we have both been willing (if variously part-time) contributors to our local community – and felt all the better for it. Being healthily provided for in the pension department it is not exactly that we needed additional funds (though a little extra is always good to have) – more that we both needed a sense of purpose and to feel that we were pulling our respective weights.

Until now…

During the autumn just past The Girl reached the conclusion that her eight years at the volunteer service was enough. As it happens the service was undergoing some restructuring and she was able to do a deal whereby she would hand over the reigns to a full-time replacement, with a negotiated package that would enable her to take some time to figure out what – if anything – she wanted to do next. She is thus once again retired (for now!).

I have now taught on term contracts at the College for six years and – in spite of trembling on the verge of entering my eighth decade (in but a few days from now) I am quite happy to go on so doing. This term I am teaching a new (to me!) course that will be offered online only. I am scrambling at the moment to put it all together, but I have no doubt that things will settle down – as they usually do.

Imagine my surprise, however, when the Chair of my department offered me a continuing post in place of my habitual two contracts a year. I didn’t see that coming and I am not entirely certain that I really care for the idea – rather enjoying being a free-spirit! I do, however, feel rather flattered to have been made the offer. I don’t need to decide until around April time – so watch this space…

As ever, it seems, very little of what has befallen us has turned out exactly as we predicted when we came to Canada.

Life does contain such riches…

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